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Other Research

At VOZ we are committed to continued research, both in the form of literature review and field research. While we ourselves have produced a number of research papers, this page is set aside to bring to the attention of the reader other papers, books and articles which have been influential in the development of VOZ, or which contribute to the continuing debates around the role of digital and social media in political engagement and the Development sector as a whole.

All articles listed below have been published independent of VOZ and, although we do our best to ensure that links stay active and relevant, VOZ cannot take any responsibility for broken links, out of print books or changes to these external links. If you find an issue with any of the below materials please contact us.

While environmental groups once relied on local, grassroots campaigns and traditional media to broadcast their messages, social media offer an additional delivery method for their messages. This study examines whether fear or information frame is more effective to spur environmental activism and engagement. We also research how perceived efficacy and fear affect behavioral intent toward environmental action.

This talk by Ernesto Sirolli at TEDx Christchurch gives an excellent view of the kind of philosophy around which VOZ has been built. We believe that local communities are best placed to provide information on human rights and environmental issues but are not always best placed to have access to GIS tools, or outlets for reporting on these issues.

Youth is the major assets of a nation, we need to channel their energy accordingly and dissipate it appropriately for the benefits of a nation and humanity as a whole. Social media has how become indispensable in our societies. Most of the major social media are predominated by the youth, exploiting it for one purpose or the other.

The Violence of Development, by long time VOZ supporter Martin Mowforth, examines the failure of ‘development’ in Central America, where, despite billions of dollars of development funding and positive indicators of economic growth, poverty remains entrenched and violence endemic. The book illustrates how development is predicated on force and systematic violence, through which the world’s most powerful governments, financial institutions and companies punish the global south.

This study examines changes in the association between social media use and protest behavior in a context of growing social unrest among the younger population. Using propensity score matching, it analyzes data from a repeated cross-sectional survey before, during and after the 2011 students’ demonstrations in Chile. The results indicate that both Facebook and Twitter have significant effects on the likelihood of protesting, although these effects vary across time and platforms.

From the Arab Spring and los indignados in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street (and beyond), large-scale, sustained protests are using digital media in ways that go beyond sending and receiving messages. Some of these action formations contain relatively small roles for formal brick and mortar organizations.

Stephanie Vie
Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida.

This paper examines the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Marriage Equality logo as an example of a meme to further understandings of memetic transmission in social media technologies. The HRC meme is an important example of how even seemingly insignificant moves such as adopting a logo and displaying it online can serve to combat microaggressions, or the damaging results of everyday bias and discrimination against marginalized groups.

Decentralized and internally diverse, the Global Justice Movement (GJM) is thought to be influenced by its use of the internet. Operating in an environment characterized by the conditions of globalization and late modernity, the movement strives to be a collective that accommodates individual difference. Focusing on the organizing process of the European Social Forum, this article examines the role of email lists and physical meetings in realizing this ‘unity in diversity’.

About

VOZ is a free multi-platform participatory mapping app that allows campaigners, activists and social movements to quickly and easily post live reports of human rights and environmental abuses occurring in their local area.

VOZ creates a database of geographically located reports, helping to share experience and knowledge, creating global connections between movements and providing up to the minute, locally produced information for national and international NGOs.